r till the middle of
February 1788.

During sittings which were held from the middle of December 1787 to the
eighteenth of January 1788, the business of the commitee had so increased,
that it was found proper to make an addition to their number. Accordingly
James Martin and William Morton Pitt, esquires, members of parliament, and
Robert Hunter, and Joseph Snath, esquires, were chosen members of it.

The knowledge also of the institution of the society had spread to such an
extent, and the eagerness among individuals to see the publications of the
commitee had been so great, that the press was kept almost constantly going
during the time now mentioned. No fewer than three thousand lists of the
subscribers, with a circular letter prefixed to them, explaining the object
of the institution, were ordered to be printed within this period, to which
are to be added fifteen hundred of Benezet's Account of Guinea, three
thousand of the Dean of Middleham's Letters, five thousand Summary Views,
and two thousand of a new edition of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human
Species, which I had enlarged before the last of these sittings from
materials collected in my late tour.

The thanks of the commitee were voted during this period to Mr. Alexander
Falconbridge, for the assistance he had given me in my inquiries into the
nature of the Slave-trade.

As Mr. Falconbridge had but lately returned from Africa, and as facts and
circumstances, which had taken place but a little time ago, were less
liable to objections (inasmuch as they proved the present state of things)
than those which had happened in earlier times, he was prevailed upon to
write an account of what he had seen during the four voyages he had made to
that continent; and accordingly, within the period which has been
mentioned, he began his work.

The commitee, during these sittings, kept up a correspondence with those
gentlemen who were mentioned in the last chapter to have addressed them.
But, besides these, they found other voluntary correspondents in the
following persons, Capel Lofft, esquire, of Troston, and the reverend R.
Brome of Ipswich, both in the county of Suffolk. These made an earnest
tender of their services for those parts of the county in which they
resided. Similar offers were made by Mr. Hammond of Stanton, near St. Ives,
in the county of Huntingdon, by Thomas Parker, esquire, of Beverley, and by
William Grove, esquire, of Litchfield, for their respecti